Setting Priorities for Farmers of North America

We recognize that Farmers of North America (FNA) cannot do everything all at once. Which means it needs to have a practical system to set priorities. Unsurprisingly, since the mission of the farm business alliance is to maximize our farm profitability, our priorities match the mission.

There are specific mission-critical areas that we have grouped into five categories:

1. Crop inputs

Crop Protection Products

Fertilizer

Seed

2. Other Operating Expenses

Insurance

Finance/Credit

Grain Handling & Transportation

3. Revenue

Product Marketing

4. Farm Information Services

Cost of Production Analysis

Marketing

Agronomy

Farm Business Management

Benchmarking

5. Capital Assets

Equipment & Buildings

As Members, we make our needs known to Farmers of North America both directly in communication with the management, and indirectly through the decisions we make in how we use the Member Value made available to us. For example, by using the businesses that the management team has negotiated to be suppliers to Farmers of North America Members, we are voting with our wallets that the inputs provided by that supplier are priorities for us. They will stay on the priority list. If on the other hand, we don’t make use of programs or suppliers in one of the categories, we may be sending the message that those things should not be on the priority list.

Formally, priorities are determined through strategic planning sessions that are backed up with data from member surveys, farm cost data, research on excess margins in different sectors and so on. As those things change, priorities may change with them. Management listens closely to Members and the Farmers of North America Advisory Board at every opportunity for ideas that also may lead to changes in priority, tactics or strategies.

Having the five priorities categorized does not directly translate into devoting resources to all of them all at the same time. Farmers of North America management must make decisions, informed by all of the consultation and research tools, but also according to a “best-bang-for-the-buck analysis.”

Since the resources Farmers of North America has consists entirely of our Membership fees, it needs to be careful, efficient and effective in using those resources.

So, for example, even though fertilizer was a much larger cost input than any other single product, the resources required to do something about it were vastly beyond what could be sensibly achieved at the start. The available resources first only allowed negotiating Preferred Supplier arrangements. As the membership grew Farmers of North America acquired the resources necessary to pursue solutions in crop protection, negotiating, taking on the political challenges, and ultimately finding suppliers who would offer Members competitively priced products. Doing something about crop protection was not cheap, but it was the best cost-benefit effort given the available resources.

Of course in the first decade of the 21st century there were enough of us that our Membership fees did allow Farmers of North America to start the process of addressing the excess margins in fertilizer, an effort that continued to the point of seeing ProjectN launched and many of us becoming actual partners in the Farmers of North America (FNA) Fertilizer Limited Partnership. When that project is complete it will mark an historic turning point for farmers, and a proud confirmation of the priority-setting process.
Of the specific items in the five categories, current priorities for Farmers of North America look like this, and its resources are spent accordingly:

It is important to recognize that our management team is highly entrepreneurial such that when an opportunity to build value for our farms is seen, it is acted on regardless where on the current priority list it may sit.